Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Biography
Scope and Content
Organization and Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Debbie Louis Collection of Material about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States,
Date (inclusive): 1949-1971
Collection number: 1111
Creator: Louis, Debbie
Extent: 12 boxes (6 linear ft.)
Abstract: Collection consists of printed materials and ephemera documenting the civil rights movement from the 1950s to 1971.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department
of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Administrative Information
Restrictions on Access
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library, Department
of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library,
Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of
the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC
Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Debbie Louis, 1971.
Processing Information:
The collection was sorted and arranged into folders and series by Debbie Louis in 1971. To improve access for researchers,
the collection was re-housed and the inventory used to create a finding aid in the fall of 2004. Louis' arrangement of the
material was preserved.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Debbie Louis Collection on Civil Rights (Collection 1111). Department of Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography
Debbie Louis was an author and collector of civil rights materials.
Expanded Historical Narrative
The real beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement came in 1954 when, in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Court found
separate schools inherently unequal and called for desegregation. In 1957 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was
formed in Atlanta, and Martin Luther King, Jr. became leader of the movement. Major advances of the movement came with the
sit-ins at the Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counters (orchestrated by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee),
the Freedom Rides integrating buses in the South, the voter registration drives in Mississippi, the protests and marches in
Birmingham, Alabama, and the March on Washington in August 1963. President Johnson called upon Congress to act, and the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 was passed. After violence occurred in a march just outside Selma, Alabama, Congress passed the Voting
Rights Law of 1965. The movement began to fragment following the urban rioting throughout the U.S. in the summers of 1965-67.
The Black Panther movement led by Stokely Carmichael, formerly of SNCC, called for a revolution in the ghettos. King was assassinated
in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
Scope and Content
Collection consists of printed materials, ephemera, and publications documenting the civil rights movement in the United States.
Collected and arranged by Debbie Louis, the collection's emphasis is on the black struggle in the South; also includes some
material related to the organized efforts of Mexican Americans in California.
Organization and Arrangement
Arranged in the following series:
- Civil rights movement, 1949-1970.
- Miscellaneous, 1963-1971.
- National organizations, 1954-1970.
- Central issues, 1957-1970.
- Publications, 1964-1966.
- Additions to the collection, 1958-1966.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States--History--Archival resources.
Civil rights workers--United States--Archival resources.
Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--Archival resources.